Energy Alternatives that Save the World;
Opening to New Hydrogen Technologies.

Dr Brian O'Leary,Ph.D. 2003

Prepared for the World Congress for a Hydrogen Economy,
November, 2001.

Abstract
When we talk about a hydrogen economy, we generally refer to the generation
of energy from the combustion of hydrogen or from its conversion to electricity
through fuel cells. These approaches have been with us for well over a century
and have wide appeal because of their nonpolluting nature and cost-effective
operations in the long run, when compared to a fossil fuel economy. But often
missing from the discussion are more advanced technologies which could make
a hydrogen economy all the more appealing and avoid the large expense of creating
energyintensive hydrogen production facilities and infrastructure.

B a s i c a l l y, the traditional hydrogen economy
involves the exothermic reaction between hydrogen fuel and oxygen in the atmosphere.
This chemistry is well understood. But two other approaches now being researched
are much more promising and provide far greater amounts of energy.

One is the hydrogen gas cell and hydrogen plasma
cell technologies of Dr. Randell Mills of BlackLight Power Incorporated. Early
research indicates that, when hydrogen gas is heated in the presence of certain
catalysts, the hydrogen atom appears to “shrink” to a state lower than the normal
ground state. The result is a novel chemical state of hydrogen called a hydrino,
and the release of energy approximately 100 times that of normal hydrogen combustion.

The second advanced technology concerns the ability
for hydrogen to electrochemically, ultrasonicly or otherwise transmute into
helium in a fusion reaction at room temperature, with the release of hundreds
of thousands times greater energy than normal hydrogen combustion. Radioactivity
is negligible. This process is often called “cold fusion” or “low energy nuclear
reactions”. It was first discovered in 1989 by Drs. Martin Fleischmann and Stanley
Pons in an experiment using palladium cathodes in a solution containing heavy
water. These experiments have been replicated many times and comprise an impressive
scientific literature.

This paper will describe how a hydrogen economy
could be enhanced by either or both of these important research developments.
The result could become what the Japanese call “new hydrogen energy”, where
ordinary water becomes the clean-burning fuel of choice.

Introduction In conferences such as this, we see a growing consensus
that humanity cannot continue to go on with a fossil fuel economy. Dwindling
supplies and the great pollution caused by burning oil, coal and natural gas
necessitate a major overhaul of our energy systems. Hydrogen is clearly the
energy carrier of choice because it is clean, safe, feasible, inexhaustible,
and cost-effective in the long run.

The sciences of hydrogen combustion and hydrogen
fuel cells are well-known and have been with us for a very long time. Henry
Cavandish discovered hydrogen in 1766 by pouring acid on iron and collecting
the bubbles it gave off. The gas in the bubbles was found to be combustible,
later identified as hydrogen. In 1820, Reverend W. Cecil built an internal combustion
engine fueled by hydrogen. Later in the 1800s and during the 1900s, hydrogen
engines became increasingly refined to the point that they have become operationally
competitive with petroleum-fueled internal combustion engines. 1 Ironically,
the use of hydrogen fuels predated the use of oil, which later took over with
the invention of the carburator and because of ease of production, storage and
fueling.

Hydrogen fuel cells are also playing an increasing
role in electrical power generation for transportation and buildings. Sir William
R. Grove built the first hydrogen fuel cell in 1839. As in the case of internal
combustion, fuel cells have been continually perfected to the point where they
can produce electricity with about 90 per cent efficiency. The cost of fuel
cells keeps decreasing as they become ever more common in the marketplace.

As promising as these traditional hydrogen energy
technologies may be, we come up against fundamental constraints which chemistry
places on how much energy we can get out of the hydrogen atom. Otherwise, the
conventional wisdom holds that we must resort to thermonuclear explosions or
multibillion dollar attempts to control a hot f u s i o n reaction in a so-far
unsuccessful effort to reach energ y “breakeven” in a confined plasma.

When we rely on energy coming from combining hydrogen
and oxygen chemically, there is a limit which dictates that more energy is needed
to produce the hydrogen in the first place. A renewable solarhydrogen and wind-hydrogen
economy are viable answers to this problem.2 Another approach is to seek a role
which might be played by “new hydrogen energy” based on recent discoveries of
powerful excess energies in experiments which haven’t yet entered the realm
of engineering or commercial application. Because we are are such a crossroads
regarding our energy future, perhaps we can now begin to agree on designing
a non-fossil-fuel infrastructure while exploring every available option. This
paper reviews the most promising possibilities in advanced hydrogen technologies,
which are admittedly still in the research phase of a research and development
cycle.

The Discovery of New Hydrogen Energy
During the late 1800s science fiction writer Jules Verne predicted that abundant
energy could come from water as a fuel. One century later, his vision seems
to be fulfilled.

In 1989, University of Utah electrochemists Martin
Fleischmann and Stanley Pons announced a dramatic discovery: deuterium in heavy
water placed within the lattice of a special palladium cathode somehow fused
with itself to produce striking excess heat and a hint of fusion products such
as tritium and helium, but no harmful radioactivity. These often-replicated
results could not be explained by traditional chemistry. Energy outputs of up
to hundreds of thousands of times greater than inputs were observed, some cells
operated with excess energies for up to two months, and the products of nuclear
transmutations were commonly detected. In spite of repeated efforts on the part
of mainstream nuclear physicists to debunk these results, obtained totally outside
their expertise, many experiments showing similar effects have been published
by competent electrochemists, ultrasonic re s e a rchers and others at the Electric
Power Research Institute, the Stanford Research Institute, Los Alamos National
Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Naval Weapons Center at C h i n a
Lake, Texas A&M University, Hokkaido National University, and several other
prestigious institutions. 3

Then, in the late 1990s, Dr. Randell Mills of BlackLight
Power, Inc., made a second astounding discovery. When he placed water in contact
with a potassium- or other metal-compound catalyst, he measured an unexpected
release of energy, apperently including as a byproduct a special fractional
lower (collapsed) quantum state of hydrogen he called a hydrino. This novel
hydrogen chemistry produced over 100 times greater energy than that from ordinary
hydrogen combustion. He has constructed prototype hydrogen plasma cells coupled
with a gyrotron to directly produce electricity. He claims to be able to scale
up this apparatus linearly to generate any amount of power at less than one
cent per kilowatt-hour, lower than any known alternative.4

These claims, while extraordinary, are well-grounded
in hundreds of experiments which involve the principle of loading hydrogen into
a metal lattice which somehow catalyzes the hydrogen into a collapsed state
and/or fusion with itself, with the release of large amounts of energy. Some
scientists are just beginning to understand this process from a theoretical
perspective, but there is as yet no overall agreement on the underlying physics.(3,4)
What makes matters even more challenging is that replication and repeatable
results are difficult to achieve at this point. While the excess energy measurments
and reaction byproducts are very real, the messy chemistry of catalyzing hydrogen
with metals is still an inexact science. But should that cause us to abandon
the overall effort? Of course not: the results have been clearly robust enough
to continue the research and eventually to perfect the process. Continuing efforts
will also help create a new theory of hydrogen chemistry and materials science.
This all is part of the sciencific process of discovering, experimenting, modeling,
researching, replicating-and later, engineering.

Some years ago, the Japanese government called this
anomalous energy “new hydrogen energy”, and they began an engineering program
during the 1990s to attempt to produce a commercially viable model. As, we shall
see, that project was to be doomed primarily because they claimed they were
unable to replicate the process. They didn’t seem to understand its complexity
and they denied positive results reported by visiting American researchers familiar
with the process. The phenomena were still elusive enough to remain in the province
of basic scientific research, an issue we’ll explore later in this article.
The fact is, new hydrogen energy is still viable but not quite ready for the
marketplace.

We might compare new hydrogen energy to the early
days of internal combustion engines, fuel cells or any other remarkable new
technology. We know these devices can work, but the time for building completely
reliable commercial prototypes has not quite come yet, because we are still
within the realm of science and not engineering. And yet the latter community
tends to ignore very real progress. Perhaps for convenience, they chose the
safe path of siding with the unknowing scientistic skeptics that attempt to
deny the evidence. These debunkers often have prestigious credentials in other
fields and have clout in the scientific community and the media. This sudden
ending of the program need not have happened with a coordinated research and
development effort among teams of scientists and engineers freely exchanging
their ideas.

Because of its great promise, to ignore new hydrogen
energy at this time might be likened to ignoring the potential of airplanes
during the time of the first Wright Brothers flights. People were still focused
on surface transport and slow airship infrastructures, which were later overtaken
by the explosive growth of aviation. I believe that a similar scenario awaits
us with new hydrogen energy.

Differences between the Realms of Science and EngineeringWhen I first entered the astronaut program in 1967 and
later became a scientist on unmanned planetary missions during the early 1970s,
I was surprised to discover that NASA was deeply divided in its engineering
and science functions. 5 While the engineers were justifiably focused on the
familiar tried-and-true technologies, the scientists were continually “pushing
the edge of the envelope” on what was possible-whether it was state-of-the-art
propulsion technologies or innovative instrumentation to explore the solar system.
In NASA, the engineers were managers who usually won these debates and took
the cautious path. Unfortunately, the trend in management philosophy is moving
even further away from the scientific world view, as unknowing lawyers and business
people take over the reins of leadership from engineers who at least might know
a little bit about the technical issues.

This ideological divide holds to this very day,
and no example is more poignant than that of new hydrogen energy. Not only is
the greater community unaware of startling new developments and replications.
The results continue to be senselessly debunked by mainstream hot fusion nuclear
physicists who know little or nothing about electrochemistry or materials science,
and who also feel they have a lot to lose if their multibillion dollar programs
couldn’t compete with the new results. Because the principles of new hydrogen
energy appear to violate the nuclear physicists’ understanding of theory, these
irrational skeptics tend to hide within the theory and deny the obvious anomalous
experimental results that challenge that theory. 3

The result of all this is a premature public denial
of the observed low energy reactions among hydrogen nuclei and atomic hydrogen
collapse phenomena. The managers and engineers who will be designing the hydrogen
economy will tend to be technologically conservative and will want to go with
what has worked consistently for a long time. By default, perhaps, they join
the debunkers, when their own abilities to strictly replicate results are fuzzy.
The challenges of producing new hydrogen energy continue to be daunting and
elusive, certainly not the kind of thing that could be replicated by reading
a manual. But the day of rigorous replicability will almost certainly come with
continuing basic research. This process of the chaotic, doubt-ridden, long but
inexorable move from scientific discovery to engineering application has been
with us since the time of Galieo. Especially during times of great change, people
are afraid of the change and so deny its existence.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
from magic”, were the words of famed writer Arthur C. Clarke. He believes (as
do I) that new hydrogen energy will have a 99 per cent chance of succeeding.

The Japanese New Hydrogen Energy
Program
A vivid example of the rift between the scientific and engineering management
cultures recently happened in Japanese efforts to establish a $23 to $30 million
new hydrogen energy program in 1993. The purpose of the program was to translate
the astounding results of cold fusion science into engineering reality, but
the project became a total failure and was shut down in 1998, because the engineers
were supposedly unable to produce excess energy. Many cold fusion experts stopped
by to participate, including Martin Fleischmann, Michael McKubre of the Stanford
Research Institute, Ed Storms of the Los Alamos National Laboratories, and Melvin
Miles of the China Lake Naval Warfare Center. All of these individuals are scientists
whose positive results were denied by the Japanese group even though Miles produced
excess energy to show to his colleagues right in the laboratory in Sapparo.
Nobody wanted to look; their minds had already been made up. This behavior was
reminiscent of Galileo’s colleagues’ refusal to look through his telescope.

In a carefully documented article, Jed Rothwell
of Infinite Energy magazine believes that the Japanese program was killed by
the incompetence of the engineers. 6 They had underestimated the difficulty
of replication and were somehow not motivated to do the necessary scientific,
creative and technical work that goes along with successful basic research.
Whether by the conspiracy of vested interests among leading mainstream managers,
scientists and politicians-or by simple ignorance about what to do and how to
do it-this important Japanese effort died because of the lack of necessary teamwork.
Their final report was entirely negative, inviting the outrage of the visiting
scientists. It gave the public the impression that they tried, that they could
not produce the needed effects, and that those reporting positive results were
mistaken. Meanwhile the work of Miles and others continued to be ignored by
his Japanese colleagues, perhaps because it would have been too much of a political
loss for those in charge to change their minds so late in the effort.

New hydrogen energy now sits in an awkward void
poised between research and development, between basic and applied science,
between the tinkering, hard-to-replicate experiments funded on a shoestring
and the creation of a commercial device, between proof-of-concept and the publicly-acknowledged
industrial phase. It awaits that break into rigorous replicability. At this
point, we are too far down on the toe of the profit curve to invite venture
capital, but not so far down as to not invite altruistic capital. In spite of
this, the anomalous energy effects continue to be robust and undeniable. The
Japanese example becomes similar to the superficial U.S. Department of Energy
Panel report denying cold fusion just months after it was discovered. New hydrogen
energy is neither the stuff of establishment science nor of mainstream industrial
engineering-yet.

Reconciling The World Views of New Hydrogen Energy
Science and Traditional Hydrogen Science and Engineering
Those of us who are evaluating hydrogen futures need to become aware of the
significant progress in new hydrogen energy research, which could revolutionize
our energy picture in short order, once the necessary science and engineering
are done. A sophisticated scenario for a hydrogen economy would include at least
two eventualities: one is a “baseline” scenario which includes the tried-and-true
hydrogen chemistry of internal combustion and fuel cells, as discussed in this
Congress. The second brings into consideration new hydrogen energy and other
new energy technologies, which could take the world by storm within a decade
or two.

As we conceptualize and begin to build solar-hydrogen
systems, we would also want to increase our support of new hydrogen energy research
which could lead to commercially viable units within years. Why should we do
this? We need to keep our options open until such time we can make a more rational
decisions about our energy future. On the one hand, we want to move into an
aggressive clean energy program using available technologies. On the other hand,
we don’t want to make an irrevokable commitment to a particular path which might
be unnecessarily capital- or materials-intensive.

The funding of new hydrogen energy research would
be two to three orders of magnitude less (on the order of tens of millions of
dollars), and its development will be one order of magnitude less, than that
for developing a solar-hydrogen infrastructure. The Mills technology, for example,
would completely eliminate the need for any solar input at all. One gallon of
water could run a vehicle for over 1000 miles without refueling. It could heat
and provide electricity for a home for more than a year. Even greater efficiencies
could be achieved with cold fusion and over-unity electromagnetic devices.

We also need to discuss which scenarios serve the
public interest the most. Are the military applications of powerful new energy
technologies sufficiently threatening to want to stop their development and
to move instead towards a traditional hydrogen-solar economy? Or can we build
in safeguards? These are important questions we must address as we move beyond
the denials of new energy. We need to assess all viable clean and renewable
options that lie ahead. New hydrogen energy would be far most economical and
have least impact on the environment. Power could come from small cells deployed
wherever they’re needed. There would be no more use for large energy infrastructures,
no grids, pipelines or production centers.

Hydrogen is amazing stuff. Our knowledge about its
combustion and use in fuel cells have been with us since the birth of the Industrial
Age about 200 years ago. The relevant technologies have been available for almost
that long, and now they’re being given a new look for fueling the 21st Century
and beyond. This comprises our “baseline scenario” for a solar-hydrogen economy.
But infrastructures would have to become more centralized, more expensive and
consume more natural resources than a new hydrogen energy economy.

A second major hydrogen energy technology was born
during the Modern Age, with the first explosion of a hydrogen bomb fifty years
ago. We discovered how hydrogen could be used for destructive purposes. Since
then, we have been struggling to develop hot fusion reactors to generate central-station
electricity. The problems with this option are technical challenges, high capital
costs, continuing grid systems, more centralization than ever, and some pollution
and radioactivity.

It has only been within the past twelve years that
a third set of revolutionary hydrogen technologies have emerged. The new hydrogen
energy units of the Post-Modern Age will be small, decentralized, cheap and
convenient. They will most likely satisfy both environmental and economic criteria
for success in the future. We cannot ignore this fact at a time in which we
as a culture must wean ourselves from fossil fuels. Engineers, managers, scientists
and industrialists alike will need to gather to propose scenarios for consideration
as to the best way to proceed in the public interest and not necessarily the
interests of vested industry.

Fortunately, the rift between science and industrial
engineering is above malice. They are simply different worldviews in which each
culture doesn’t adequately understand the other. Scientists and inventors tend
to be unrealistic about their expectations of commercial application. Engineers
tend to cut themselves off from the science prematurely because of their interest
to implement a new future which is based on cut-and-dry technology. The shutdown
of the Japanese effort to demonstrate new hydrogen energy is an example of this
oversight. This kind of rift most often happens at the time of a bold new breakthrough.
It can be healed by open discussion of how real and enduring these phenomena
are, and how further investigation could almost certainly lead to an energy
revolution.

There is actually more malice amongst factions of
scientists-especially when the breakthroughs of one set of disciplines (e.g.,
electrochemistry and materials science) overtake those of another (e.g., nuclear
physics). The startling new discovery that there is an energy-producing relationship
between hydrogen and some metals unseats the prevailing wisdom that hydrogen
can only give off so much energy unless we attempt to confine it within a hot
plasma. These squabbles can infect and spread to those who are not aware of
the technical content of the debate. In fact, there are many approaches to new
energy, any one of which could change the world. 3

In truth, scientists creating breakthroughs and
engineering managers are two cultures that could work effectively together,
two sides of the same coin. They just need to talk with each other and compare
their world views. The engineers need to know more about the dynamics of premature
debunkery, and the scientists should be more integrated into management. We
all want to be united in purpose, which is to end our dependence on polluting
and scarce fossil fuels. With our ever-increasing knowledge of the mysteries
of hydrogen science and engineering, we can move to a clean and everlasting
hydrogen energy future.

References and Notes
1. An excellent survey of the traditional hydrogen economy is Our Future is
Hydrogen! by Robert Siblerud, New Science Publications,Wellington, CO., 2001.